BRUSSELS: A second tape fuelled concerns on Friday of a US-EU rift over Ukraine after the apparent phone hacking of a top US diplomat cursing the bloc’s stance, but Brussels downplayed the leaks as a sideshow.

In a fresh leak uploaded on the Internet, a senior EU official allegedly discusses the situation in Ukraine and differences with Washington, especially over sanctions on Kiev.

Helga Schmid, a senior official on EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton’s staff, says the “Americans are going around telling people we’re too weak while they are tougher on sanctions.”

But Ashton is actually “on the same page” and only wants to prepare the ground, the diplomat is heard telling the EU’s ambassador to Ukraine, Jan Tombinski.

“What you should know is that it really bothers us that the Americans are going around naming and shaming us,” Schmid says in the tape.

A first tape was leaked on the Internet of Washington’s new top diplomat for Europe, Victoria Nuland, disparaging the European Union’s stance on the Ukraine crisis.

“That would be great I think to help glue this thing and have the UN glue it and you know, f… the EU,” Nuland allegedly says.

Nuland in Kiev on Friday did not dispute the tape’s authenticity but refused to comment “on a private diplomatic conversation”.

“It was pretty impressive tradecraft,” she added in what appeared to be indirect confirmation of the authenticity of the tape. “Audio quality was very good.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel described the remarks as unacceptable.

“The chancellor considers this statement absolutely unacceptable ... and wants to emphasise again that Ashton is doing an outstanding job,” a spokeswoman for Merkel said.

“The European Union will continue with its intensive efforts to calm the situation in Ukraine.”

However, Brussels would not be drawn on the Nuland tape. “We don’t comment on leaked alleged telephone conversations,” said a spokeswoman for Ashton.

“I cannot imagine that the two tapes are accidental,” said one EU diplomat, who downplayed the episode as a “sideshow” to getting the Ukraine crisis solved.

“I am sure the EU and US are united in wanting to solve this,” the diplomat said.

“They don’t always agree, but that is what happens when you have... a situation where there are no easy answers.”

The embarrassing row came as Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych was due to hold crisis talks with his Russian counterpart and ally Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi.

Washington and Brussels have engaged in a diplomatic standoff with Kiev and Moscow over deadly mass protests that erupted in Ukraine in November when President Yanukovych rejected a pact with the EU in favour of closer ties with old Soviet master Russia. Meanwhile, an angry US State Department pointed the finger at Russia for allegedly bugging the diplomats’ phones.

“Certainly we think this is a new low in Russian tradecraft,” US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.—AFP